Font and placement for worship slides

[Beverley]

I like to be able to read it myself in the back. Being that I have poor eyesight I figure if I can read it most of the other people can also. I think when thinking about the size of the font it also matters how big your Church is. The bigger or the farther back people are the more difficult to see. I use the ariel bold with a black boarder, Capital on most every new line. There are a few that I leave small but it really is dependant on the song. I try to say away from busy backgrounds that make reading the words more difficult and I try to keep with the lyrics and make page breaks more natural.

[wogster]

Originally Posted by FocusMM

Hi. I just wanted to find out from other churches what Font(s) they normally use for their worship song slides. Does one work better than the other? Do you use ALL CAPS? Do you change up the fonts for different songs?

Also, how many lines per slide do you use. We try to keep it at four lines or less. And do you center the lyrics or position as a lower third?

We use ProPresenter with motion backgrounds behind the lyrics. We had changed up the fonts a bit to appeal to the younger crowd and make it look more contemporary. But the Pastoral staff wants to change it back to a more standard font but has allowed me to get feedback from other churches. Thanks

DeWayne Towe
Media Director
New Life Christian Center

There are really 3 things to be concerned with:

1) Character size on the screen, bigger is better, most people use a computer display of around 40 point for important stuff. Smaller fonts for other stuff.

2) Character detail, the less detail the better, sans serif fonts are better then serif fonts, and plain fonts are better then complex fonts.

3) Contrast, you want good contrast between the characters and the background, that means a light background with dark characters or dark background with light characters. If your background is a photo or video, then you can use outline fonts, where there is a contrasting line around the font, to make sure it's always readable. If the photo is B&W use yellow or light green rather then white for the characters.

One other piece of advice, if people tell you they find the screen hard to read, then try something different, like a larger font or more contrast. Remove bulbs from lights that are close to the screen, and block windows that put light on the screen.

[superfly]

A few years later, and I've ditched Arial Rounded MT for the free "Ubuntu" font that comes with Ubuntu. It is incredibly readable, one of the best sans serif fonts I have found.

Usability experts say that serif fonts (think Times New Roman) are easier to read, thanks to the serifs on the characters - they help people to see the differences between the characters, especially characters like L and I. I found that the Ubuntu font has a very clear distinction between those two characters, amongst others.

[[Admin] osborn4]

I think the serif recommendation is for printed matter and pages full of text.

I really think san serif looks a lot cleaner and very readable on the screen.

[[Admin] osborn4]

Originally Posted by superfly

A few years later, and I've ditched Arial Rounded MT for the free "Ubuntu" font that comes with Ubuntu. It is incredibly readable, one of the best sans serif fonts I have found.

Here's the download site for the Ubuntu font. Looks like a very full family.

Interesting that the condensed and mono versions are serif.